39 Responses to “Front View Of Hip Rotation”

Paul – a great video! It looks like your hips turn way ahead (yes your teaching method) of the arms, but then slow down to the 45 degree point (at impact). Then once your arms come through and hit the ball, your arm momentum helps rotate your hips to the full follow-through. It looks like you are waiting for your arms to catch up with the hips, and then almost in unison after impact, follow through to the top. Is this correct?

Excellent video and presentation. I’ve been practicing these drills a lot but I’m wondering why I stray from one round to the next. Day 1 I’m aiming 40 yards left an booming them down the middle. Day 3 I’m booming them to the left side of the fairwawn. Day 5 I’m in the left rough and shorter the first five holes so I weaken my right hand grip a little and boom a long, high fade 20 yards off the right fairway [while still aiming 40 yards left]. During all three rounds my long, mid and short iron shots are on line at the target while aiming at the target, not left]. So I think I’m erroring and creating band aides. Your analysis Pail, please.

You need to be basing your swing on things in life that repeat. These things are coiling and uncoiling (torque) and forces acting on the mass (club). This is why I want your arms powerless. This means you are not hitting or helping the ball in any way with your arms. Then the forces acting on the mass will bring the club to the widest point consistently.

Paul,I actually use a fourth trigger (Not quite sure you will approve of it!).
At the start of the downswing ,I “aggressively” bump my left hip forwards and rotate it at the same time ,the right foot pushes hard of course,but unconsciously .
Then I disagree with RYAN’s comments above :I feel the hips and the arms moving in unison :while speeding up the hips the fastest I can , I do my best for the arms to catch up with the hips !
Not quite sure in doing so that I’m a “POWERLESS ARMS “swinger ,as I put no effort in my arms to move them but I just think of having them go fast to catch up the hips .
Are my feelings correct or not ?

Paul, WOW! I get it. It just came to me as I was watching and then practicing the hip rotation, adding to it the right leg touching the left and it just clicked! I feel like my swing just improved and it is feeling very fluid and smooth indeed.

I know this is an older video but I just have watched it and it sang to me.
Thanks!

It’s funny how certain things allow it to click for people. This is why everyone should be watching ALL of the videos through the red navigation bar at the top of any page. This is whole point of joining the site.

Hi Paul. I played 18 today and concentrated on the hip turn extensively. Unfortunately, someyjing you make look so easy, is not easy for me. When I started the hips before the arms I tended to lose my spine angle and hit thin straight shots. When the arms start first, I make great contact but goes considerably left. At least I saved a lot of strokes around the greens with you pitching technique. The simple hinge and turn seems a lot easier than taking a full turn and then starting the hips first. I have a clear intellectual understanding of what your doing, but the isn’t always willing. Practice should solve things since I do accomplish it about 20% of the time.

If you are losing your spine angle you are doing it too hard. I keep saying just do it. Then once you can … do it faster. Baby steps. Instantly you should know that thin, topped and sliced shots are from hitting too hard.

If you are hitting it left you are not tilted behind the ball. So tilt behind the ball.

Exactly. This is what I said about a strong grip. If you have a strong grip you cannot have loose wrists. Zack Johnson is a tour player that had repeated this swing probably over 1 million times and he keeps doing it. If so, you can get good but why would you want to have to practice twice as hard. Nicklaus rarely practiced and could be Zach Johnson with his eyes closed.

I have for some time been working on your downswing triggers and touch the leg, touch the head and feel that it is one of the key fundamentals to making my game far more consistent (handicap 9). Recently I have been firing my hips much faster and find that my drives do go straighter and longer.

However, I find that when trying this with my irons I have some really bad pulls and a feeling that I am swinging too fast.You will tell me, probably, that I am hitting with my arms again thus causing a pull. Seems odd that I do it more with irons than woods.

Anyway your tips are excellent and when I now watch the top pros I see that their hips are really firing quickly. Keep the tips coming!!

Hi Paul, your system works It’s awsome we (my wife and I)follow all your lessons and we improved significantly.
My question,maybe stupid, but why flies the tee backwards and not in the direction of the stroke?

The tee means nothing. It is just catching on the grass then snapping back. Mine usually stays in the ground. Just depends on your angle of attack. Stay behind it more and you will not move the tee either.

Like this tip and the finer grain of the hip turn. I was trying to overdo it a bit lately and get the leg fully straight before impact (or so I thought)… Knowing that the -45 to +45 is the desired move to impact really helps me get it right and very consistent.

Paul, I just want to be clear on one aspect of the swing: When u start turning your lower body, your arms r just slightly behind your lower torso, correct? I think I may be rotating my lower body too far ahead of my arms——-some shots seem to fade right….Arms should be connected to lower body so they don’t lag too far behind lower body during swing, right???? Thanks for clarifying this for me!!!!

Posted about this yesterday too. My back swing is way too flat, and sometimes I feel like practice swings above the ground encourage that. When I try to correct my flat swing I chunk the ball or hit the ground first, or hit it off the heel or toe, and it just feels way too steep to me. I have your lesson package and feel like the hip rotation, loose wrists, and powerless arms are helping me but I’m so inconsistent with proper ball contact at impact and club face position at impact.

Yeah, but you are trying to make a major change expecting perfect shots. It doesn’t work this way. If you are working on the position you are not even thinking of all elements of the swing so there is no way you would hit perfect shots. Fix the position. Getting my swing back to upright took me every day for 2 weeks. Once I go it I never had to think about it again. So you focus on the backswing. You do this in practice swings at home and at the range. Your wording tells me you are hitting too many balls trying to make this change. This is NOT how to do it. Less balls more repetitions.

All of the flaws you listed are on this site:

Fat – too much weight on the back foot through impact – of course this would happen you are thinking about your arms not your body.
Heel – arms again you sending it over the top cause you are not thinking body
Toe – you are lifting up trying to see the result of the change.

This one has been around for a while now and, in my opinion, it is one of the very best videos to save as a favorite. It explains the importance of starting the downswing with the lower body in a way that is simple and understandable. It certainly is on my personal ‘Top 10′ best ever and has helped me a bunch. I also like all of the Paul Wilson’s Swing’ slow motion videos so they are on my ‘Favorites’ list as well. Just watching a good golf swing in slow motion seems to always help me when I start to struggle a bit. Your ‘favorite drill’ is also mine now as well. Such a simple and effective way to keep the swing working as it should without having to spend a bunch of time at the range. Any time I find myself in the vicinity of my golf bag, I just pick out a different club and make a few swings making certain to get my hips involved first in the downswing and then being able to hold the the finish positions. This has done more for me than just banging out a bunch of practice balls looking for some crazy secret answers. I always made things much more complicated than that really are and I thank you for getting me out of that nonsense.

Great video. One thing I have been working on is getting the right grip pressure so I can get the maximum hinge/re-hinge. If I go too light I open the left hand at end of backswing. The ball flight is okay but I think I lose distance. If I grip tighter so I don’t open hand at ed of backswing, the ball flight is a push to the right. Any suggestions on how to correct this?

I noticed that your right heel is off the ground at impact. What should the weight distribution we feel at impact.

How do keep the shou8lders back and get your hips beyond your shoulders at impact. s this a conscience movement or just concentrate on keeping your hips open at impact. I guess im asking how to get that separation?

Hey Paul, I have been using the same trigger as you for a few months now and have had a lot of success. Sometimes I don’t get to my left side and hit the ball what I feel like is too early in the turn there for missing it left. To adjust for that I make the trigger move more overtly and And feel like I am looking back at the ball at impact and it feels like I’m hitting it much later in my turn. Should I have a feeling as though I’m hitting it later in my turn and I’m looking back at the ball. When I do that I hit it straighter but it doesn’t go as far. I guess what I’m trying to say is I either under rotate or over rotate in relation to impact. I feel like of the two it would be better to over rotate a little bit. It seems like if I tried that last drill you said above that might be my best way to approach it. Let me know what you think thanks Brad

Hey Paul, I just played nine holes since my last comment and I killed it by thinking of it as a wound up spring and letting it Unwind from the bottom up . I was doing powerless arms but my shoulders were turning to fast instead of unwinding. When I let my shoulders unwind as a result of the leg move I hit it long and straight. Do you think that approach will hold up? It’s like powerless shoulders too. Don’t interfere with the shoulders too not just the arms. What do you think? Thanks Brad

Good job. I think coil going back and fire the lower coming down. I never think shoulders in the downswing just to not help the shot with the arms. If this thought is working then do it. I would think you will get used to it then stop thinking about them too. There is just no need to think shoulders in the downswing.

Paul, this tip was an eye opener to me. Talking about hip turn is good but seeing it actually happen in slow-motion really drives it home.
I am constantly working on proper hip turn. Seeing your video with the easy how to advice makes my drill better and keeps me from injury by doing an overly exaggerated turn during my downswing.
Thank you!
Cheers!